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ANSON JUDD UPSON 

Born November 7, 1823 Died June 15, 1902 

Elected Regent of the University February 11, 1874 

Elected Vice Chancellor January 30, 1890 

Elected Chancellor September 29, 1892 



Sift. 





ANSON JUDD UPSON L.H.D. D.D. LL.D. 

Regent of the University 1874-1902 
Vice Chancellor 1890-92 Chancellor 1892-1902 



University of the State of New York 



ANSON JUDD UPSON 

Anson Judd Upson, Chancellor of the University of the State of New 
York, died in Glens Falls, June 15, 1902, in the 79th year of his age. 
He was born in Philadelphia Pa., Nov. 7, 1823, the son of Dana Judd 
and Mary Clarke Upson. His father dying- while he was still of tender 
years and his mother remarrying, his boyhood was passed mainly in the 
family of his grandfather, William Clarke, in Utica, to which place he 
was signally attached during his life and where, at his own frequently 
expressed desire, he is buried. He pursued his preliminary studies at 
the Utica Academy, entered Hamilton College as a sophomore in the 
fall of 1840, and was graduated therefrom in 1843, with one of the 
highest honors of his class, specially excelling in belles-lettres. He 
was affiliated with the Sigma Phi fraternity and became one of its most 
prominent and devoted members. On the chartering of a chapter 
of the Phi Beta Kappa at Hamilton, he was also enrolled in that 
sodality of scholars. After leaving college, he studied law for two 
years in the office of Spencer & Kernan in Utica, but without being 
admitted to the bar; and, conscious that his true vocation was that of 
a teacher, he accepted a tutorship in Hamilton in 1845, with the faculty 
of which he was associated for the ensuing 25 years, being appointed 
adjunct professor of rhetoric and moral philosophy in 1849, and professor 
of logic, rhetoric and elocution in 1853. 

In the esteem of the alumni of that institution and in that of others 
familiar with his work as well, these were the most productive and 
persuasive years of Chancellor Upson's long and honorable career. To 
his leading, the exalted reputation which Hamilton has maintained in 
the department of rhetoric, and the prominent positions in politics and 
the professions which so many of her sons have assumed, are largely, if 
not chiefly, due. To keen critical powers of analysis of the construc- 
tion of the English tongue, a wide range of reading and an intimate 
acquaintance with the best authors, he added the gift of imparting 
knowledge and a special aptitude for directing the processes of com- 
position. As a drillmaster, he was unexcelled — earnest, exact, pains- 
taking, proficient, and he stamped his individuality on his pupils. In 
educational circles, he was regarded as the most thoroughly equipped 
and inspiring instructor of elocution of his day. He materially enlarged 
and improved the system of Mandeville, and the continued rhetorical 
superiority of Hamilton College shows that his successors have profited 
by his teaching and emulated his methods. Of him Prof. Oren Root, 
once his student and always his friend, thus writes: " He used to the 
best advantage all there was in him. He threw the whole of himself 
into every bit of work he undertook. This was his strength as a drill- 



4 UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 

master; he identified himself with the declamation or oration, and he 
put himself into the other fellow's place. He did not drill men to 
imitate him, but to give forth themselves in the best fashion. He even 
drilled men to speak better than he could. Moreover, the heart of the 
man was a factor always in his favor." 

It was at this period that Chancellor Upson, both because he wished 
to supplement the narrow stipend of a college professor and because he 
had something to say, entered the lecture field and immediately became 
one of its chief attractions, speaking not less than 300 times in New 
England, New York and the western states. It was the golden age of 
the lyceum, in which the scholars, the wits, the philosophers and the 
statesmen of the land instructed, as well as entertained, their audiences 
and had eager welcome and appreciative hearing. Among those who 
appeared on the rostrum were Thomas Starr King, Henry Ward Beecher, 
John B. Gough, George William Curtis, Mark Hopkins, Alonzo Porter, 
Ralph Waldo Emerson, Wendell Phillips, Bayard Taylor, Edward L. 
Youmans, Oliver Wendell Holmes, George Vandenhoff and Anna 
E. Dickinson ; and in this radiant galaxy the young college professor, 
with his timely themes and graceful periods, was a brilliant star. His 
thought was earnest, his diction at once forceful and attractive, his 
knowledge wide and well digested, his voice finely modulated, his manner 
attractive, and withal his humor was delicate and delicious. His subjects 
were various, and such as were becoming to the scholar and the man of 
letters, but there was one, The Childlike Spirit, the treatment of which 
was specially felicitous and fascinating, and the memory of which still 
lingers in the minds of many, who were privileged to listen to it, as 
does the Sir Philip Sidney of George William Curtis. A few extracts 
from this celebrated lecture will not be inopportune as specimens of its 
author's style at the time indicated : 

When Coleridge defined genius to be that faculty which makes new 
intellectual combinations, perhaps he could lay no claim to novelty, but 
he rises almost into the region of inspiration when he flashes out upon 
us this additional truth: "The moral accompaniment of genius, its 
actuating principle, is the carrying on the freshness and feelings of 
childhood into the powers of manhood." Simply to maintain in our 
emotional life that continuous accumulation which we all of us main- 
tain in our intellectual progress, simply to maintain that which the 
soldiers call aline of communication, which, starting from the fountain 
of childlike feeling, a sparkling stream, shall permeate and freshen 
with continuous verdure the dry intellectual acquisitions and achieve 
ments of a life; this it is to exemplify the line of Horace, this it is "to 
live to the last as life began " — to live a life consistent with itself. Then, 
indeed, is Wordsworth right, the child is the father of the man, and our 
days are "bound each to each by natural piety." To carry on the feel 
ings of childhood into the powers of manhood is the moral accompani- 
ment without which even genius is worthless . . . 

There are certain characteristics, which involuntarily and without 
conscious analysis we associate with childhood. Such are simplicity, 
sincerity, humility, reverence, gentleness, cheerfulness, a sense of 
novelty, humor . . . 



ANSON JUDD UPSON 5 

We know each other not so much by what we say and do, as by what 
we are. We shall never know each other. We can not even know 
ourselves. There is in each life a daily, hourly conflict of joys and 
sorrows, hopes and fears, one's closest friend can never know. We 
speak to each other in the silver tones of confidence and trust, yet there 
is between our souls a veil, which can never be withdrawn. Now and 
then, some great master uplifts a corner and lets us catch a glimpse of 
the human heart, opens for us little pictures of human life, and, as if 
triumphing in his own strength, and in derision of our weakness, calls 
these pictures plays! And so we worship that great master, while 
we call him Shakspere ! We can not know each other ; only one being 
can know us, and Him we can never completely know. Yet it is that 
Divine Being who has given unto men those intuitions, by which they 
instinctively detect and despise habitual deception. A simple minded 
woman has many a time at a single glance seen through a complicated 
web of artifice and crime, which years of intricate reasoning would 
never have unraveled. Ostentations, affectations, shams of all sorts, 
many a little child, with its serious eyes, and many a man, with the 
spirit of a little child, has at a glance disrobed and detected . . . 

There is certainly no better criterion of the intellect of a nation or 
race than the answer to the simple question, What in their politics and 
religion, do they worship? I know it is frequently said of us as a 
nation that we have no reverence ; that our self-reliance has made us so 
blind that we have fairly fallen down into the receptacle of self-conceit 
and vanity. And certainly, when you remember that you seldom see a 
boy amongst us now; that everyday each one of us deems himself com- 
petent to settle the most perplexed question of morals, metaphysics 
and finance, as well as politics, by his vote; and that there is no country 
in the world where the argument from the authority of great names, or 
from the experience of the past, is so utterly futile; when we remember 
these facts, it does seem as if there could not be much reverence 
amongst us. But we think it is not difficult to show that one of the 
chief causes of the elevation of the common mind of the country, para- 
doxical as it may seem, is this one of the actuating principles of genius. 
Croakers may not be willing to admit the fact, but we think it plain 
that such has been the effect of habitual reverence on our national 
character, that here every man reveres that which is above the compre- 
hension of the common mind in other countries. For in our politics 
and our religion we have learned, as no other people have learned, to 
worship a conception — an abstraction or ideal. Dr Livingstone has told 
us of tribes in central Africa who shout with convulsive laughter when 
they see us kneel down and worship something in the air — nothing, as 
they think it is. But our ancestors in the woods of Germany would 
have laughed at them. Our Teutonic race from the very beginning has 
been exalted by this reverence. We all know that our German ancestors 
did not, like the Romans, immure their deities in temples, nor did they 
represent them by any human form. "They consecrated their woods 
and groves and called by the name of God that divine presence which 
filled the place, which they saw with the eye of the mind alone." And 
this has been the prevailing form of the worship of our Teutonic race 
ever since, whether that worship has been in the woods of Germany, or 
the marshes of Holland, on the hills of Norway or the highlands of Scot- 
land, or the coasts of England, or the rocks of Plymouth; whether the wor- 
ship has been pagan or Christian, it has been an intellectual paganism 
or a spiritual Christianity. There are those who say that the spiritu- 



6 UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 

ality of our Teutonic Christian worship is simply the result of the 
intellect of the race. We believe that exactly the opposite is true : we 
believe the intellectual power of our Teutonic race is, under the 
good providence of God, a result of the spirituality of its worship; 
because the Teutonic mind must be exalted and expanded by the very 
effort to comprehend, in order that it may worship a conception. 

So early as 1856, Chancellor Upson's thought turned toward the Chris- 
tian ministry, to which he subsequently dedicated himself. Having 
embraced the Christian faith and identified himself with the presbyterian 
communion, he began the study of theology in the year specified, and in 
1859 was licensed to preach. His services were in frequent requisition in 
the pulpits of central New York, and, in 1870, he accepted a call to the 
pastorate of the Second Presbyterian church in Albany, to the exceeding 
regret of the friends of Hamilton College. Then followed a decade of 
most acceptable service and spiritual leading in that historic church. 
His administration is a memorable one. His congregation was devoted 
to him. He was honored and beloved as a pastor and admired for the 
strength and purity of his deliverances. He held first rank among the 
clergymen of the capital city, and visitors as well as residents were 
attracted by his preaching, which was characterized by the same vigor 
and clarity as his secular utterances. He was a member of the General 
Assembly of his church in 1871 and 1877, as also in 1884, a delegate to 
the Evangelical Alliance, in Belfast, in 1884, and preacher at Cornell 
University in 1876. In 1880, he resigned his Albany charge to become 
professor of sacred rhetoric and pastoral theology in the Auburn Theo- 
logical Seminary, where he remained till 1887, when he resigned because 
of impaired health, and was made professor emeritus. Of his service in 
the seminary Prof. James Stevenson Riggs thus writes: 

It was in 1880 that Dr Herrick Johnson accepted a call to Chicago 
and left the chair of homiletics in Auburn Theological Seminary vacant. 
The loss of this able teacher was severely felt and for a time it seemed 
irreparable. Sorrow was turned into joy, however, when the friends 
and students of the seminary learned that the Rev. Anson J. Upson 
D.D. , of the Second Presbyterian church of Albany, had accepted the 
invitation of the commissioners to succeed Dr Johnson. It was a 
happy choice. Rarely have men been fitted so completely and thor- 
oughly for work to which they have been called as was Dr Upson for 
this chair. He brought to the seminary the riches of a long, successful 
professorship of rhetoric and elocution in Hamilton College as well as 
those of a faithful, able and prospering pastorate in Albany. The 
force of this splendid training was soon felt among the students. The 
keenness and penetration of his criticism was always balanced by the 
breadth and power of his sympathy. Nor was it by any means simply 
training that made itself felt in all his Auburn work. Back of it and 
in it, pervading the whole like the sunshine of a June day, was the 
genial, high-souled personality of the man. From the very beginning 
he was the friend of the students. It sometimes happens that a pro- 
fessor is admired for his intellectual gifts, his thorough methods and 
his personal power — but not loved. Or he may be loved for his unfail- 
ing sympathy, his cordial helpfulness and his consistent character, but 
not admired. Dr Upson had both the admiration and affection of all 



ANSON JUDD UPSON 7 

Auburn men who knew him. He himself exemplified the highest ideals 
of the preacher. He held himself vigorously to the most careful, 
thoughtful preparation for the pulpit. He scorned slovenly intel- 
lectual work and turned on it the scathing fire of his criticism, when- 
ever he discovered it in the students; and yet he was patient, encour- 
aging and stimulative with all men who were honest in effort and 
devoted in purpose. He was peculiarly fitted to keep homiletics in 
close touch with life and thus make it vital. Mere scholastic correct- 
ness was to him intolerable. He aimed to make the pulpit human — a 
source of power for lives needing comfort, cheer and courage. That 
spirit was infused into the students. His sense of humor made the 
classroom always a delight. Many a time its genial play has saved a 
man from a sore heart or a discouraged mood. Who can ever forget 
the merry twinkle of his eye or the hearty laugh that resulted from his 
quick perception of the incongruous or the ludicrous in some would-be 
solemn effort of a fresh young theologue? I have known him to labor 
two years with a man, striving in hopeful patience to rid him of some 
misconception in speaking. He knew men almost intuitively; their 
elements of weakness or power were open to him at a glance ; and, from 
the time they entered the seminary, he directed his whole force intel- 
lectual and cordial, to the proper discipline of his "new friends." He 
had that rare power of being able to discern individuality in men and 
in all proper ways of strengthening it. There was no monotonous level 
in the public expression of the men who came from under his care. 
They had been taught to be themselves and to give their message all 
the effectiveness which their own personality could put into it. As one 
looks back on the work of Dr Upson in Auburn, one can get some 
idea of the real breadth of manhood and of intellectual view required 
of a true teacher of elocution. It is not strange that they are few. No 
work needs greater psychologic insight than this. What is more, this 
insight can not be gained but in small part from books and printed 
rules. It comes only from contact with men ; from rich experience in 
the study of life, otherwise an undue emphasis may be put on mechan- 
ical helps and machine methods. No man who heard them is likely to 
have forgotten soon Dr Upson's merciless criticisms of "pulpit tones," 
mouthing oratory, clerical conceits and highflying rhetoric. Even a 
few hours in the classroom made one who was tempted to use such stilts 
to lift him up, a sadder and wiser man. 

With such conceptions of preaching and such qualities of character, 
it is not surprising that Dr Upson was eagerly sought for as a supply 
for vacant pulpits in New York State. Men loved to hear his vital, 
sympathetic message and they were only too glad to have him as a 
guest in their homes. More than one large church in central and 
western New York was in no hurry to call a pastor when it could have 
the ministrations of this noble preacher. He fed the people and 
inspired them to truer living. 

There is one hour of the seminary weekly routine that from countless 
associations lives in the memory of every Auburn graduate, and that 
is the hour of devotional service on Monday evening. At this time the 
professors speak on purely spiritual themes and seek to give an impulse 
upward to the life of the seminary. The students were always on hand 
in full body when it came Dr Upson's turn to speak. They expected a 
soul-stirring message, and they were not disappointed. I have heard 
him in the whole round of religious themes — some stern, fearless and 
uncompromising, others wise, carefully discriminating and just, still 



8 UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 

others, tender, delicate and full of sympathy. They were uniformly 
helpful. Into them he put the strength of his mind and fulness of his 
experience and the best of his heart, and they did much to keep life 
here pure and high minded. 

A deep shadow indeed fell over us when a severe illness prostrated 
him and he was forced for a time to give up his work He did not get 
his full strength again, and a second attack compelled him at last to 
give up entirely. He wisely followed his physician's advice, and was 
thus spared for years to those who loved him. It was not easy for him 
or for us, his colleagues in the faculty, or for the students to say 
"good by." The years had bound us very closely to him. In the 
faculty he had been a wise counselor and a beloved coworker. In the 
social' life of the city he had always been a welcome participant. In 
the church he was widely influential. It seemed inexplicable that he 
should be obliged to stop working just when he was making his life tell 
mightily for everything good. It is, however, not to be forgotten that 
it was only with his own mental and physical powers that he stepped 
aside to rest. As long as the men whom he trained are in field, he still 
works on. They are more effective men because of him. They are 
exemplifying the ideals which, in part, he gave them. The impress of 
his discipline is on them, the impulse of his noble teachings still urges 
them on. His own lips are silent and yet he speaks in many a pulpit. 
The fragrance of his blessed life is still with us here in Auburn. 

The closing years of Chancellor Upson's life were passed in Glens 
Falls, save when his official duties called him to Albany. In 1872 he 
was elected a trustee of Hamilton College, which office was vacated by 
his election as a Regent of the University in 1874. He was chosen 
Vice Chancellor in 1890, and Chancellor, on the death of George Wil- 
liam Curtis, in 1892. This last honor was the fitting crown of his let- 
tered life. He obtained it naturally and logically, and his associates in 
the board conferred it on him as pertinently as unanimously. He 
brought to the discharge of his high functions, large experience in the 
work of higher education in the State and an enlightened apprehension 
of its needs. His academic service had prepared him for the super- 
vision which fell to him. His tenure as head of the University included 
its constitutional definition, the broadening of its jurisdiction and a 
marked advance in the vigor as well as in the scope of its administra- 
tion, and much of the progress accomplished must be attributed to his 
forethought, sympathy and attention to details. Impartial and cour- 
teous as a presiding officer, with a generous deference to the views of 
his associates, he secured their respect, confidence and affection. By 
his uniformly considerate bearing toward the subordinates in the office 
he also won their regard ; while the trustees and faculties of the various 
institutions with which he had relations bore willing testimony to his 
capacity and fidelity. He was laureated by a number of New York 
colleges, Hamilton conferring the degree of doctor of divinity in 1870, 
Union that of doctor of laws in 1880, and Colgate that of doctor of let- 
ters in 1895. His addresses before the convocation were distinguished 
for their luminous presentation of educational issues. They were clear, 
concise and convincing. If he emphasized one point more than another, 



ANSON JUDD UPSON 9 

it was his consistent vindication of the American college, as against 
undue eclecticism in its curriculum. Not hostile to much that the new 
education proposes, he was yet conservative of all that experience has 
revealed as of value in the old, and he was an ardent champion of the 
classics as disciplinary agencies in a liberal education, and never hesi- 
tated so to declare himself. To the last, his speech was earnest and 
forcible, and none could fail to understand its meaning. As Chancellor 
he was at once a scholar and man of affairs. In the fulness of years, 
he has departed, leaving a record of faithfulness to duty in all the posi- 
tions he filled. As a teacher he was splendidly equipped and singu- 
larly conscientious, as a preacher of the Word magnetic and persuasive, 
as Chancellor of the University dignified, affable and learned, and as a 
man he was upright, gracious and lovable, and as modest and unassum- 
ing as he was attractive. Had he been more aggressive, he might 
possibly have achieved a larger reputation, but he could not have 
cemented warmer friendships nor have exercised a more beneficent 
influence than he did through his extended life. He was married in 
i860 to Lydia Farlin, by whom he is survived. C. E. F. 

SERVICES AT GLENS FALLS 

Preliminary funeral services for Chancellor Upson were held Tuesday 
morning, June 17, in the Presbyterian church, Glens Falls, where he 
had been a constant attendant during his residence in that village. 
Some two years previously, he had outlined the arrangements for his 
funeral and burial, and they were carried out in accordance with his 
wishes. The services were in charge of the Rev. John R. Mackay, the 
pastor, assisted by the Rev. Everett R. Sawyer D.D., pastor of the 
Baptist church at Sandy Hill, and the Rev. C. D. Kellogg, pastor of the 
Presbyterian church at Sandy Hill. The principal address was made 
by Dr Sawyer, the prayer was offered by Mr Kellogg, and brief remarks 
were made by Mr Mackay, who also read the selections from Scripture. 
The hymns were sung by a quartet choir in charge of Mr W. F. Bissell. 
The bearers named by Dr Upson were D. C. Farr, John L. Cunning- 
ham, LeRoy C. Rockwell, Charles H. Wilson, E. T. Johnson and A. 
Wurtemberg. Dr Sawyer's address was mainly confined to personal 
impressions of the Chancellor's life and work in the relations of an inti- 
mate friendship, and was as follows: 

The word which I have to say at this service is that of an imperfect 
but heartfelt tribute to the memory of a friend. 

Along the pathway of the years we meet with many a life which 
makes no special impression on our own. We exchange familiar greet- 
ings; we are conscious, it may be, of kindly thoughts going out to one 
and another, and hope at least for like thoughts to be directed in return 
toward ourselves. And that is all. There is no entering into the 
secret chambers of the heart. The door is closed to us ; or, if it seem 
to be opened, we do not seek or choose to enter. But here and there 
we meet with a life that in some special manner impresses us by its 
apparent fulness and richness. We are attracted toward it; and, if 



IO UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 

so be we are admitted to its fellowship and comradeship, we come to 
account its helpful and inspiring influence as above all price. Such 
was the life which our beloved brother, entered into rest, lived here 
among us — a life of singular gentleness and yet, as we were made to 
feel in its presence, thoroughly true to its own deepest convictions and 
strong in its steadfast purpose. 

We think with admiring interest of the distinguished service which he 
rendered through so long a term of years in the public stations to which 
he was called and which he so well filled, in the cause of education and 
in the Christian ministry. We think of the great number of young men 
who were led to aspire for something higher and better in their aims 
and ambitions under the influence of his instructions and his example. 
But with some of us at least the thought of Dr Upson and the memory of 
him in coming years will also be the thought and memory of an ideal 
friend. And in the very qualities which made his friendship so precious 
to us will be found in part the secret of that success with which his life 
work was crowned. One could not sustain any personal and intimate 
relation with Dr Upson without being convinced of his deep and constant 
sincerity, a basilar quality of all real friendship. Beneath his tact, 
his quick mental touch, his uniform amenity we soon came to feel that 
there was the steady beating of a true, warm, brave heart. He had a 
just scorn of all disguises and pretense. And, because for himself ever 
choosing and seeking the higher realities of life, he was in an eminent 
degree prepared to be a helpful counselor and safe guide. He knew 
men. He knew how to weigh character by a judgment at once discrimi- 
nating and just. 

But it was not on this account alone that he drew friends around 
him, and that his friendship was so highly prized. There was another 
side to his nature, and that no less apparent to one who came to know 
him. 

The choicest friendships are those which feel most strongly the bond 
of a magnetic sympathy. To be able to enter into and adapt oneself 
to the thought, the emotion and the circumstances of another, this is 
to have the secret of making friends ; and this gift of heart touch and 
heart expression Dr Upson possessed in an unusual degree. He so 
well knew "how to speak a word in season to him that is weary." 
Keenly sensitive to another's pain or trial, he was, at the same time, 
most thoughtful of practical means to afford relief and comfort. His 
long and varied experience supplied a large fund of cheer and counsel 
which he generously imparted as there was need. 

Some of us I am sure in depressed and troubled hours have sought 
his presence to prove for ourselves the strength and tenderness of his 
sympathy, and to be helped by his words of counsel to take up with 
new hope and courage the burden of duty. And to give him one's 
confidence was to know that it was safe. His loyalty to all who reposed 
their faith in him could be implicitly trusted amid shifting winds of 
popular favor or the heavy shadows of adversity. He was ever grieved 
to learn of any estrangement between those who should be living and 
working in fellowship and accord ; and I recall that tender earnestness 
with which he once said to me that, among the attractions of a future 
life for him, was an assurance that " there will be no misunderstandings 
in Heaven." 

He had that charity which the late Professor Drummond described 
as "the greatest thing in the world," and of which St Paul wrote, 
"Charity suffereth long, and is kind; . . . thinketh no evil." 



ANSON JUDD UPSON II 

His truly catholic spirit was exemplified in his relations with his 
brethren of different religious bodies. While he never concealed his 
strong attachment to the creed to which he subscribed, and was ever a 
stanch defender of the teachings which it set forth — while the first 
place in his heart was given to this church in whose fellowship he so 
delighted to share, and of whose beloved and honored pastors he was 
wont to speak with sincere affection, his was still that true spirit of 
brotherhood which recognizes Christian worth under whatever condi- 
tions it may be found, and bears its cheerful testimony to whatever 
is genuine in Christian character in all branches of the one ' 'household of 
faith. " And so in our sense of loss and sorrow today we bless God for 
this life whose hallowed influences and sacred memories will abide with 
us — a life which through so many years and varied spheres of useful- 
ness was consecrated to highest objects in Christlike ministry, and 
which so exemplified the true ideal of life as " not a cup to be drained, 
but a measure to be filled." 

For one who thus lived there could be no fear of death. In the 
patience and cheerfulness with which he approached life's close was 
reflected the light of that Unseen Presence that attended all his way — 
even that of the Blessed Saviour in whose steps he walked, in whose 
nearer vision it is now given him to rejoice, and whose greeting he 
has now received — "Well done!" 

In connection with the services at Glens Falls, a tribute from the pen 
of Prin. D. C. Farr was published, from which the following extracts 
are made : 

Among the many young men who came directly under the influence 
of his strong personality and today have impressed themselves in turn 
on their fellow men are such men as Charles Dudley Warner, Senator 
Hawley, Herrick Johnson, Elihu Root, Melancthon W. Stryker and a 
host of others who are honoring the influence of their noble and inspir- 
ing teacher in so many parts of our country and so many different walks 
of life. 

The secret of his large success as a teacher is found in the great love 
which he felt toward each one of his students, which in turn awakened 
a love for him, which resulted in a strong and helpful friendship that 
was an abundant source of inspiration to both teacher and taught. The 
strength of the love which bound him to his students and his students 
to him is shown by the fact that these friendships formed in youth have 
but grown stronger with advancing years; and, when old age had fallen 
on both, their attachment for each other strengthened as they each 
came to see a more perfect and highly developed character resulting 
from the friendship so early formed. 

Dr Upson's work as a teacher was not confined to the college class- 
room, but early in his career he was called to the lecture platform, 
where he instructed and delighted audiences of cultured people in all 
parts of our country. Among these lectures there is one that will ever 
shine as a star of the first magnitude, The Childlike Spirit, so like him- 
self that one can easily see that it is the child of his own spirit. This 
lecture has been given upward of two hundred times in all parts of our 
country and always with the greatest delight to his audiences. It is 
said that, had Dr Upson never done any other work besides this, his 
reputation among the American men of letters would have been secure. 

Dr Upson won an honored position among the great preachers of 
this country. For 10 years he filled an important pulpit in the city of 
Albany. His reputation as a preacher rested on the double fact that 



12 UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 

he had something to say and knew how to say it in felicitous language. 
It can be truly said of every sermon that he ever preached that it con- 
tained a full justification for its existence. 

Dr Upson was a scholar along many lines, but specially along that of 
his mother tongue. Very few writers of our country have been able to 
use it with more exactness and force than he could. 

Being thus endowed with a keenly appreciative mind, which could 
easily grasp and assimilate the thoughts of others, and with the power of 
elegant expression, he was possessed of the rare power of the rhetorician 
whose every sentence would bring real joy to the reader of taste and 
culture. 

In our hasty analysis of the elements which have made Dr Upson 
great, we have touched on his ability as a. teacher, a preacher, a scholar, 
yet we are sure that we have not yet reached that element of his being 
which is superior to all others and towers above them all as the lofty 
summit of some snow-capped peak towers above those foothills which 
mark the beginning of the mountain region. That element of super- 
iority is that of friendship. In this he showed himself at his best ; in 
this he gave the most and received the most in return. The intimacies 
which existed between himself and his friends were so close that, while 
he most powerfully influenced them, he in turn was influenced by their 
strong nature, which he helped so powerfully to form. Hence it was 
true that the power which he sent forth from himself to bless and enrich 
the lives of others in turn came back to him in increased measure, 
which fact explains the rich and powerful life which he lived. While 
his friendships were strong, they were no less loyal. No one ever 
confided his faith to the keeping of this friend and ever felt that it had 
been betrayed. 

Such elements as these must make friends, and such they did, as is 
evidenced by the very great number in every part of our land today 
who mourn the death of Dr Upson as that of a personal friend. Such 
has been the life of this truly good and great man, and such it will 
continue to be in time to come. He has lived a fruitful life in the lives 
of multitudes whom he has inspired with his own noble sentiments and 
high ideals, and such influences will still be fruitful for good as long as 
any of these virtues which he has inculcated find a lodgment in any 
human soul. As we think over the past of this truly successful life and 
view it as a whole, we can truly say, ' 'Inspiring teacher, noble preacher, 
discriminating scholar, magnanimous friend, rest from thy labors, for 
thy works shall follow thee." 

SERVICES AT UTICA 

The services at Utica were held in the afternoon of Wednesday, June 
1 8, at the Reformed church, and were attended by a large and distin- 
guished body of mourners. The Board of Regents was represented by 
the Honorables Charles R. Skinner, Charles E. Fitch, Henry E. Turner, 
St Clair McKelway, Carroll E. Smith, Pliny T. Sexton and Albert 
VanderVeer, the last named being a pallbearer. James Russell Parsons 
jr, secretary of the board, and Frederick J. H. Merrill, director of the 
State Museum, were present. Many alumni of Hamilton College and 
Auburn Theological Seminary, together with personal friends from 
various parts of the State, were also in attendance. The honorary 
bearers were Hon. Milton H. Merwin, Hon. Alfred C. Coxe, F. W. H. 



ANSON JUDD UPSON 1 3 

Sheffield, George M Weaver, Charles B. Rogers, all of Utica, and 
Regent Albert Vander Veer of Albany. The active bearers were D. R. 
Peet, P. H. Judd, W. R. Bloyer, F. W. Paton, J. W. Robinson, 
and H. L. Stowell, all students of Hamilton College and members of 
the Sigma Phi fraternity. Among the relatives and friends present, 
besides the stricken wife, were the Rev. James Deane, of Delaware 
county— a foster brother— Mrs Lyons and Mrs Van Benthuysen of 
Albany, and Mrs Diggar, Allsie McAdam and Esther McAdam, of New 
York. The arrangements at Utica, as at Glens Falls, including the 
selection of pallbearers, were suggested by Dr Upson. The services 
opened with the hymn Ask Me what Great Things I Know, by a 
quartet composed of Mrs G. Ray Hoff, Mrs A. H. Dobson, E. A. 
Ballou, and L. D. Tourtellot. The Rev. Dr James S. Riggs, of the 
Auburn Theological Seminary, read the chosen passages from the Bible — 
the 28th Psalm and portions of the eighth chapter of Romans and the 
seventh chapter of Revelation. Dr Riggs then offered an earnest 
prayer, and the choir sang Jesus, the very Thought of Thee. The Rev. 
Melancthon Woolsey Stryker D.D., formerly a student at Hamilton 
College under Dr Upson and now the president of that institution, then 
delivered a touching, appropriate and chastely eloquent address, speak- 
ing substantially as follows: 

We are gathered, dear friends, in a room that was full of associations 
and was very dear to him whose dust we bring here this day and whose 
silent form we surround with reverent affection and lift up our hearts 
on the wings of Christian praises, with a common confidence, I trust, 
in that Saviour whom he adored and whom he followed, who has gone. 
We are here today, a company of friends and of neighbors. We are 
here, however, as representatives of a far larger group of those who 
loved the man whose body we are to bury. It is with the utmost grati- 
tude and with a humble sense of the honor that I find myself called to 
say these few words. It is because it is given me to speak for the 
college that was always dear to his heart that you listen now. My 
friend who is with me here comes to us representing another great and 
honored school with which the love of his life was closely linked. There 
are those before me who know him in other relations, large relations, 
important, public, wide of report. We gather then representing many 
thoughts and many spheres of activity and of honorable and accomplished 
usefulness. The young men who bore this body into this house of God 
this afternoon are just of a piece with those classes that on that hillside 
a little way from here he taught and loved. They did not know him, 
or knew him almost not at all. Some of us who are here were his 
pupils. Some of us are here who were his personal, warm friends. I 
speak to, as I speak for many who knew him long ago and with this 
variety of chaplets and with this unanimity of admiring love we gather, 
not in his behalf, but in our own, to strew the perishing blossoms of 
human tribute on his life. 

The story of our friend is familiar surely to this household company. 
It is highly appropriate that we should gather in this house and in this 
city., for long ago — it must seem long ago even to those who can remem- 
ber it, if there are any here now — away back in the fore part of the last 
century, our friend, a fatherless lad, came with his mother to this inland 



14 UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 

town, where all the fruitage of his life was to be established and where 
so much of this fruitage was to be exercised, by reason of strength 
nigh to four score years. Not always is it labor and sorrow, for not all 
of labor is sorrow. It is well to labor if it must be sorrowful, but to 
our friend it was labor and joy, for all I know, almost to the very 
last day, certainly I know down to the very last year. To live to be 
more than 78 years old is to make a record that demands recognition 
both from heart and from mind, from those who watched him. He was 
a schoolboy here then, and from here he went in slower days than these 
to the hillside almost within your sight from this lofty street, and there 
he studied and was in the class of 1843. We do not know, any of us, what 
doors are open or into what avenues they lead. Who can guess that? 
And yet 30 years of his life our friend was to spend on that fair hill. 
It was there and in that work that slowly and steadily his mind turned 
clear and firm in Christian conviction toward Christian consecration. 
It was with that college church and in it that he confessed his faith. It 
was while there that he was admitted to be a preacher by the authorities 
of this local presbytery. It was while there that by that same presbytery 
he was ordained to the Christian ministry, and so it came to 1870, and 
there are some faces here who remember those last years and the great 
sadness that fell on that hill when it was told us in the class of '70 that 
Dr Upson had graduated from that college work. 

It tinged that whole summer with sadness for all who knew. Ten 
brave, busy years followed as a most distinguished preacher of the 
capital city ; seven years at the head of the department of rhetoric and 
preaching in Auburn Seminary; since 1874, overlapping, a member of 
that honored body — the University of the State of New York, today 
officially and not merely lepresented in this company. Some ten years 
later Dr Upson came to the vice chancellorship of the Regents of this 
State and then — I believe it was in 1892 — succeeding that gifted and 
lamented scholar, George William Curtis, he was promoted to the 
highest academic dignity that the State of New York can name. 

Now, dear friends, here in the compass of these three or four parti- 
tions is a broad and fulfilled life. Appropriately I say here, because, 
wherever his home was, with great loyalty to the city of his boyhood 
his heart turned here. I remember — may I say it now — that some 
years ago I spoke to him as delicately as I knew how, uttering the 
hope that, when he came to pillow his head in the earth, it might be 
on our well loved campus on College hill, and he wrote me one of those 
affectionate letters that flowed so easily from his sweet pen and thanked 
me and said, " No, Utica is my home. There are my kindred; there 
they lie, and there I shall be buried;" and today, in all the beauty of 
a perfect June, we carry his body, with peace in our hearts, to the good 
pillow of the earth and give his soul, surrender our share, to the God 
who has taken it, who has taken him to His presence. It was a life 
that at every stage made the most of its opportunity and its abilities, 
and that life is a maximum life. All that our friend had he poured 
into the friendship of his affectionate purpose and molded into all 
the forms of his various activities. Some of us loved him as a dear 
teacher, an inspirer of high and fine ideals, an example of delicate 
discrimination and of the keenest interpretation; moreover of rare 
courtesy and gentle manliness. All that he had ; and some of us per- 
haps there are who can remember words of deeper exhortation which 
fell personally from his lips, of whom, thank God, I am one. He was 
a noble preacher and spoke abroad in this region to those who loved to 



ANSON JUDD UPSON 15 

hear him. And he was a great teacher, not only on yonder hill but at 
the theological seminary; and by more discernment than justified the 
event the authorities of the State University chose well when he was 
appointed to that dignified and representative office which so grace- 
fully and greatly he filled to the last. He made friends here, a boy. 
May I say that my own dear mother, long, long dead, was one of the 
companions of his childhood in this old town of Utica. He made 
friends on that hill 9 miles away. He made dear friends as a minister 
and pastor. They learned to love him and mourned him when he went 
from the seminary from which my brother comes with his greeting. 
And those who were associated with him in that work which may 
seem to us sometimes a merely technical and routine matter, held him 
in tenderest regard. He did somewhat, I am sure, to make that dignified 
body a more compact, a more genial, a more enthusiastic group of men. 
His was a nature that longed for affection, shy somehow, sensitive often, 
I do not say over-sensitive, keen to discern, with fine touch and tact 
that recognized a situation, with a certain thermometric quality of his 
heart with which he recognized the temperature of the spirits that came 
to him, and quick to respond. With an eye that could twinkle, he loved 
love. Long ago I remember, ten, twenty, thirty, more years than that 
ago, our friend delivered a lecture that was famous in this region, on 
The Power of the Childlike Spirit. It was his spirit. The bud on the 
tree is fair and white and fragrant and dainty and it falls. The hard, 
nervy youth succeeds it, a contrast with sweet infancy, a poor prophecy 
of the fruit that shall be. Summer ripens and swells and paints the 
fruitage. The winds shake roughly the boughs of the tree. The 
alternations of cold and of heat smite it and somehow it survives through 
them all and grows and grows and stands in storm and rain and blast, 
holding to that bough, and then on a perfectly still day in the autumn, 
when not a breath moves a leaf, when everything is absolutely at rest, 
that perfect fruit, fully ripened and weighted down with its own ful- 
filment, falls. We can mourn the blast and the frost that hurt the 
blossoms. We can mourn that which shakes the unripe fruit to the 
earth. We can deplore the hand that plucks away what seems finished 
of its promise; but a ripe life, why should it not drop into the lap of 
God, the great garner of all that He has brought to perfection? We 
are not here this afternoon to sob and moan and cry. We lift up our 
hands and hearts to God with gratitude for a life brought to a. noble 
consummation, for a life completed. It ought to be so and it is so. 
And it is not with any mortuary platitudes that we surround this coffin. 
In that faith in which his soul was fixed we sing, not with lip service, 
the psalms of Christian godliness. It was his careful, tactful, forecast- 
ing mind that even for this day chose as the expression of his own 
ripe faith the words we have heard and shall hear, of Christian melody, 
of Christian thanksgiving. The words that were read our friend chose, 
and surely he would ask me to say for him, as I have so often heard 
him say for himself, that his refuge was in the abundant mercy of his 
Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ; and now that his lips have ceased, and 
the smile we loved has vanished, and the good gray head is pillowed 
away from our sight, once more and in God's house and with the very 
stanza that was so much cherished by him, let us confess his faith and 

our own : 

Jesus, our only joy be thou, 
As thou our prize wilt be ; 
Jesus, be thou our glory now 
And in eternity. 



1 6 UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 

May all of us, with all whom we have loved on this ground of so 
many associated memories, with all whom we have loved in the friend- 
ship of service, there may we all be gathered. Amen. 

At the conclusion of Mr Stryker's discourse, the quartet sang Rock 
of Ages, the benediction was pronounced, and the cortege took its way 
to the cemetery, where, after the committal ceremony was had, the 
body of the great teacher and good man had sepulture. 

MR SYLVESTER'S SERMON 

On the morning of June 22, the Rev. J. Walter Sylvester, pastor of the 
Second Presbyterian church of Albany, to which Chancellor Upson 
formerly ministered, preached the following memorial sermon. His 
subject was The Christian Life a Light to Men, his text being from St 
John 5 :35 : "He was a burning and a shining light ; and ye were willing 
for a season to rejoice in his light. " Mr Sylvester said : 

Doubtless it is a happy arrangement of Providence that we so soon 
forget those who pass away from the scenes of this mortal life. Nature 
is kind to us. She quickly heals our wounds ; softly she soothes our 
troubled spirits. For the dreams that are blasted she gives us new 
hopes; for the friends whom we lose she gives us in exchange other 
companions, so that, while the number of those whom we love in this 
life may not be too much decreased, the number of those in the life 
beyond is constantly growing. One generation goeth, but another 
springeth up to assume the toils and sorrows, the victories and joys of 
life. One by one men pass to their long home, and the mourners go 
about the streets. Yes ! for today, and possibly tomorrow ; but the 
day after they have laid hold of their work, and time and labor push 
them on inexorably into forgetfulness. 

Consider if you will the lessons suggested by one of the very old 
houses found on so many of the streets of our city. Think of the 
generations that have dwelt therein ! Think of the births, the marriages, 
the deaths ! How almost wholly have the memories of the old people, 
long since departed, passed out of the lives of the descendants who 
inhabit the house today. Their places have been taken, by those 
unborn, when they were called to their fathers. Old faces, old customs, 
even old friendships are forgotten. And this not because we are 
unworthy of the past, and faithless to its traditions. It is the way of 
life, and is ordained of God. How else would the work of the world 
get done? We may give some silent hour of the night to memories; 
but are not to forget that with the morning light there will come the 
pressing obligations of the actual and living present. 

While, therefore, it is true that the great majority of people who pass 
on to the other life are soon forgotten, there is occasionally one the 
memory of whom will not so readily die. Here and there some man 
or woman is doing so great work in the world that to forget, in the 
brief compass of a few years, the life behind the work is impossible. 
There are certain people who win an enduring place in the memory of 
their fellow men. Neither time nor chance can rob them of the high 
regard in which they are held. Their words have deeply impressed us; 
their lives have been a revelation of the power of goodness. The 
example which they furnished forth in daily experience was as a ' 'burning 
and a shining light." Even though they have passed on to the other 



ANSON JUDD UPSON 1 7 

life, we find ourselves still living under the pervading influence of their 
presence. Though dead, they continue to speak, and we rejoice in all 
the holy and uplifting memories of their old associations with us. 

During the last week we have lost out of our earthly fellowship one 
whom vou will not readily forget. I say " our fellowship," for he to 
whom I refer, the Rev. Dr Anson Judd Upson, was for 10 years your 
pastor. This was his first and only church. He came here in the full 
maturity of his powers. He served you with commanding ability and 
increasing devotion. In the ministry of this pulpit and in the life of 
our city he was a " burning and a shining light, " and you were willing- 
yea, eager— for a season to rejoice in his light. Now that he has 
gone, not out of life, but into life, it would seem eminently fitting that 
this pastor and people should render to his memory their tribute of 
affection and esteem. To this tribute I give myself most willingly; 
and, though my acquaintance with Dr Upson scarcely warrants any 
attempt at a critical study of his life and character, nevertheless certain 
characteristics of the man, as we all knew him, make it comparatively 
easy to give a fairly just though rather general estimate of his place 
and influence. I shall attempt nothing more, and shall be quite content 
if only I succeed in aiding you as a people to enshrine his memory in 
your hearts and to symbolize that memory in some fitting memorial of 
loyalty and affection. [The speaker here reviews the main facts in 
Chancellor Upson's life, elsewhere recited, and continues.] 

Let me now ask your attention to certain considerations that seem, to 
my mind, involved in this brief study. Carlyle has said that you can 
not study the life of a great man, however carelessly, without learning 
something thereby. I should say of Dr Upson that he had, within 
certain limitations, marked characteristics of greatness, and these I 
will now attempt to point out. 

And first, let me observe that his life was singularly consistent from 
beginning to end. He seemed always to understand his powers and to 
have them well in hand. From the first he was a student; from the 
first he regarded his life as an offering to the transcendent interests of 
education and religion ; and, though for the greater part of that life 
he was a teacher, identified with the educational problem in our State, 
nevertheless, he ever regarded education as the handmaid of religion. 
To him the moral and religious interests were supreme. He took life 
not too seriously, but ever and always earnestly. He conceived of him- 
self as an instructor in righteousness. He never thought of education 
as mere training in the classics and mathematics; he regarded it as the 
unfolding into full maturity of all the capacities and powers of one's 
manhood. Were time given to quote at length from his inaugural 
addresses as Chancellor of the University, you would at once see that 
his theories of education were not constructed to meet the passing 
demands of the hour. They were built up out of the solid material of 
his own experience. He was more than a little suspicious of the modern 
tendency toward specialization. Give the young man a broad and 
thorough education, he would have said ; draw out every capacity of 
his nature by full and all round training, and he will be able to make 
his own special rules and readily adapt himself to every requirement. 
I find, in one of his more recent addresses, a strong if rather sharp dis- 
cussion of this very point. "The symbol of a strict specialist," he 
remarks, " pursuing a straight line from the beginning to the end of his 
educational life, is not an oak, but a poplar. And for myself, I yet 
prefer the depth and breadth, the strength and durability of the ancient 
quercus." 



1 8 UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 

Such an utterance was quite characteristic of Dr Upson. It was what 
I had in mind when I spoke of his being great within certain limitations. 
His very consistency was his chief limitation. To be against a thing 
because it is ancient is no more reprehensible than to be against it be- 
cause it is modern. Great as were the ability and character of this 
man, he seems to have been unable to appreciate wholly the modern 
movement of thought in either education or theology. He was reared 
under the old standards, and unto the old standards he adhered to the 
day of his death. Forced as we are into admiration of his consistency, 
we are also forced to admit that it brought him into conflict with many 
of the 20th century ideals. Yet, where he opposed men and measures, 
it was with such open honesty, such tolerant spirit and such kindness 
of heart as to win, even from his opponents, respect and admiration. 
Where consistency served him she proved his strength; where she 
tyrannized over him she proved, in some measure at least, his weakness. 
He was a man of whom it might be said with singular truthfulness 
that his very defects were rooted in his virtues. 

Having thus spoken of what I conceive to have been Dr Upson's chief 
limitation, I am prepared to go on and point out certain things in his 
character and work that greatly partook of beauty and strength. In a 
brief though happy tribute Vice Chancellor Doane spoke of his life work 
as more particularly educational. This is true, as I have already indi- 
cated ; yet even in that work he was peculiarly a moral and religious 
instructor. I have read his annual addresses since his election in 1892 as 
Chancellor, impressed, all the while, by the religious — I might say the 
evangelical — tone of those utterances. Though he resigned his pulpit 
over 20 years ago he never forgot that he was a minister of Jesus Christ. 
He was something more than an educator; he was a Christian educator, 
and it is this fact, together with his pastorate in this church, that justifies 
me in considering him as preacher and man, while not overlooking the 
fact that he was technically a teacher. One is impressed not so much 
by his scholarship, profound and accurate as it was, as by his knowledge 
of the world, his acquaintance with men and the readiness with which 
he detected their needs and gave himself to them in a ministry of 
sympathy. 

When, therefore, we come to consider Dr Upson as the Christian 
preacher, we find his life suggestive of many things which we need to 
emphasize in this modern day. My knowledge has been gleaned from 
those of you who well remember his pastorate, and from such printed 
addresses and sermons as have come to hand. From such data he 
stands forth a most thorough of painstaking ministers, specially in his 
preparation and delivery of sermons. His style was finished, and pos- 
sessed of those prime qualities of clearness and force. At times he rose 
into real eloquence, but never passed beyond the limits of good taste. 
Occasionally one happens on a passage so elegant and chaste that it 
might well serve as a fit model for young men wrestling with the intri- 
cate mysteries of the art of public speech. Here was a man possessed 
of the most utter reliance on God, believing in the constant inspiration 
of the Holy Spirit, and yet in no way neglectful of patient and pro- 
longed attention to all the little details and niceties of language. Even 
voice and gesture were regarded by him as essential to effective preach- 
ing. Indeed, he was highly distinguished for his power in presenting 
a theme, and the grace and charm with which he insinuated his beliefs. 
From his earliest years he trained himself and others in the fine art of 
expression. "Under the magnetic leadership of Dr Upson," says a 



ANSON JUDD UPSON 1 9 

writer in an article on Hamilton College, published in one of our leading 
journals, "afterward of Albany and later of Auburn Seminary, the 
training' in the department of elocution and oratory reached a degree of 
excellence unapproached in any other American college." This is high 
praise, but the record made by the sons of Hamilton bears out the 
claim and places Dr Upson in the very front rank of those men who 
have trained our American youth for public speaking; and the power 
of public speech is one of the most valuable safeguards to our republican 
institutions. 

When we turn from the method to the matter of his discourses, we 
find, as we should expect, that he had elaborated the Gospel into a 
system. He was a firm believer in the value of a definite creed. "A 
minister," said he, in a recent address, "is called by a church, or ought 
to be, because of his creed." Here, in a single sentence, you get his 
point' of view. He used to tell with great glee a story of the late 
Norman McLeod, a distinguished preacher of Scotland. Soon after 
his settlement over a rural parish, he called on an old Scotch woman. 
She watched him carefully for a while and then remarked : " I see your 
manners and your talk are well enough, but what I want to know is 
whether you can state the sax foondamentals. Give me those." Thus 
it was with Dr Upson. He gloried in the fundamentals. The preacher's 
first obligation, to his mind, was to believe the creed, ipsissima verba. 
As I have said, this was a limitation, but it was also a source of 
strength. It gave to his discourses a positiveness and directness that 
were of great power. His sublime certainty was one of the secrets of 
his eloquence. As one would expect, he was more an evangelist and 
teacher in the pulpit than he was a prophet. Yet he was not without 
insight and prophetic power. Above all, there was always a note of 
kindness in what he said. Attached as he was to his creed, he loved 
men and women even more. A kindly man, and one full of sympathy 
—a gentleman in the truest sense of that much abused word. He was 
a gentleman of the old school, and who shall say that the new school has 
not yet to prove its superiority? Dr Upson had sympathy; he was one 
with his fellow men. And it was this, rather than his creed, that made 
him so true a minister of Christ. This church which he once served 
has grown away from his creed; it can never forget the Christian 
power and spirit of his manhood. It can never forget that last tender 
message in his farewell sermon. How beautifully appropriate are the 
words to this occasion: "And now, brethren, for a season, farewell! 
It is not a separation forever. I shall never cease to be in reality one 
of your ministers, though in form I may have no such relation. It is 
not likely that, in the Providence of God, I shall ever have another 
pastorate. I may hope to be numbered among your ministers always. 
The two ministers you have had in the past never had a subsequent 
pastoral relation. And may I not hope to be numbered with them in 
your memory and in your sacred anticipations? For myself, you shall 
be my people always. You shall have my prayers and my sympathy as 
your minister. I shall rejoice in your success and be saddened by your 
sorrows. May it be our delightful privilege to worship together, ' The 
Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.' " 

And so, though it may be true that his chief life work was in the wide 
field of education, there are those among you who will remember him 
as the preacher and the man — remember him as the man, the Christian 
gentleman, even more than as the preacher. He has passed out of our 
mortal sight, but his influence remains to bless our lives; his presence 



20 UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 

is with us as a benediction to our church. He was a "burning and a 
shining light," and we shall continue to rejoice in that light. Our text 
is something more than a happy turn of phrase that fits itself to the 
thought of his ministry here. There is a striking significance in the 
choice of this symbol. Again and again in the Bible is the life of such 
a man as Dr Upson likened to the light. And how apt is the metaphor, 
in this particular case, will be apparent when you pause to consider the 
special function of light. Light radiates from a common center to all 
directions. It is free and spontaneous in its ministry. Its work is as 
unconscious as it is beneficent. How noiseless is the accomplishment 
of its mission ! How soft and resplendent, as it strikes through the 
darkness and falls on the waiting earth! In the silence of the morning 
it comes to us unheralded, bearing in its genial glow the choicest bless- 
ings. It falls on stagnant waters and draws out of them into the azure 
heavens crystalline drops of purity. Oh light that transforms every 
common thing into a dream of beauty ! Silent, mysterious, ineffable 
light ! 

Offspring of heaven first born ! 
Or of the eternal coeternal beam, 
May I express thee unblamed? Since God is light 
And never but in unapproached light 
Dwelt from eternity, dwelt then in thee. 
Bright effluence of bright essence increate ! 
Or hear'st thou rather pure ethereal stream, 
Whose fountain who shall tell? Before the sun, 
Before the heavens, thou wert, and at the voice 
Of God as with a mantle, didst invest 
The rising world of waters dark and deep, 
Won from the void and formless infinite. 

From all I have said you will see how beautifully appropriate are the 
words of the Scripture that liken the life of a great and good man to 
the light. Have I ventured too far in saying of this man that he was 
a "burning and a shining light"? Had not the love of Christ been 
enkindled in his heart? And as the flame of a lamp shines through 
some exquisitely chaste globe,' touching its cold surface into warmth 
and beauty, did not the kindling of the Christ love radiate from the 
inner sanctuary of his heart, transforming the mere scholar, preacher 
and man into a magnetic personality? Was it not a life of illuminating 
power? Is not the secret of his efficient service to be found in what 
Dr Bushnell so aptly called "unconscious influence"? We say of him 
today in our careless speech that he is dead ; that the light has gone 
out. Thus we say of the day, that it dies. You have watched the 
sunset and been conscious of the deepening shadows. It has been a 
long day — one full of labor and of love. And now it is dying. The 
broken fragments of cloud are piled up on the far drawn horizon. The 
sun throws back its last rays, kindling and transforming the storm 
wrecks into a splendor that draws the imagination out into the invisible 
realms of God. Thus in one last burst of ineffable glory dies the long 
summer day. It is gone and darkness reigns over the earth. 

Oh friends, would it not be well for us to consider that for every 
sunset there is a sunrise? The light continues to shine, though it falls 
not on our waiting eyes. The earthly life of a good man closes like the 
dying day. Shall we then say of him that his light has gone out? Say, 
rather, that it is caught up and absorbed in that holy and resplendent 
liGfht that shineth forth out of the midst of the throne of God ! 



ANSON JUDD UPSON 



ACTION OF THE REGENTS 
At the meeting of the Regents held in Albany July 2, 1902, there 
were present the Governor and Regents Townsend, Fitch, Turner, 
McKelway, Beach, Carroll E. Smith, Sexton, T. Guilford Smith, Vander 
Veer and Lord. Regent Fitch presented the following minute, which 
was adopted by a rising vote : 

The Regents place on their records this minute of appreciation of the 
spirit and of the work of the late Chanc. Anson Judd Upson during his 
28 years of membership, and this tribute to his high personal character 
and eminent public service. Dr Upson's labors as a Regent of the 
University crowned his lifelong service to education. The experience 
gained through 25 years in the chair of the professor contributed to the 
signal qualifications displayed by him in the broader educational field 
to which he was called by his election as a Regent. In the art of teach- 
ing he was an adept, moral earnestness no less than intellectual force 
contributing to that rare power which he exercised over the minds of 
young men. His sympathies, thus broadened through experience, 
gave him a quick understanding of the needs of the schools committed 
to the charge of the University. His attitude toward the various interests 
within the control of the Regents was appreciative and sympathetic ; 
his policy was progressive and marked by keenness of vision ; his 
relations toward his associates and toward deliberative gatherings over 
which he presided were distinguished by urbanity, dignity, tact, and 
that charm of manner which honors both the head and heart. 

The period of Dr Upson's chancellorship was one of the most impor- 
tant in the educational history of the State. The standards of educa- 
tion advanced; the institutions within the University multiplied ; and 
the duty of the State to the citizen and the child received a more gen- 
erous interpretation than ever before. In all the labors that these 
developments involved, the Regents cooperated with zeal and insight, 
counseling, persuading, directing; and no one more than their wise, 
alert and energetic head. Chancellor Upson, a scholar in the noblest 
sense, ever favored such an interpretation of the functions of the 
Regents as would diffuse the blessings of learning most widely. 

Our relations with Chancellor Upson were always most cordial and 
sympathetic, and bound us to him with strong ties of respect and 
esteem. He rejoiced to meet with us and to lead us. He was a cor- 
rect scholar, a stimulating teacher, a sincere and sunny friend and a 
just and kindly presiding officer. All loved and trusted him. He lived 
the life and died the death of the scholar, the gentleman and the 
righteous, and may our last end be like his. 

Vice Chancellor Doane paid the following tribute : 
The earthly end has come to a long, valuable, distinguished life in 
the death of the Rev. Anson J. Upson. My early relations with him 
were during his active ministry in Albany, when he was a pastor of the 
presbyterian church. My closest relations with him have been in our 
common membership as Regents of the University of the State of New 
York. It will not be thought in any sense derogatory to his power as 
pastor and preacher to say that Dr Upson found the fine and natural 
climax of his powers and his character, as Chancellor of the University 
of the State of New York. He was " a scholar and a ripe and good 
one." His experience, his interest, his whole instinct was in educa- 
tional matters. He brought to the discussion and decision of the 
important questions coming before the Regents, the quick insight of a 



22 UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 

trained, scholarly and well furnished mind. Keen and alert in the 
consideration of various questions, stanch to the traditions of the older 
academic habits of thought and work, he had wonderful youngness of 
appreciation for all that was best in the newer methods of education. 
He was a liberal conservative; holding fast to all the old anchorages, 
and yet free, with the swing of guarded and protected liberty, to move 
with the tides and winds of all advancing movements. And through 
all the stress and strain of argument and debate, his was the calm, 
judicial mind, whose positiveness and decidedness were tempered with 
the gracious geniality and the quiet humor of a nature that won us all 
to him by its attractive charm. 

Dr Upson discharged the duties both of Regent and of Chancellor 
with a devotion, a distinction and a dignity which will enrol his name 
among the great Chancellors of the University of the State of New 
York. 

Regent St Clair McKelway paid the following tribute : 

The Chancellor of the University of the State of New York, the 
presiding officer of the Board of Regents, the Rev. Dr Anson judd 
Upson, died at Glens Falls N.Y. on Sunday morning. He was born on 
Nov. 7, 1823, and would have been 79 years old on his next birthday. 

His death will be regretted as that of a superior preacher, a teacher 
and author, as well as of an eminent official of the highest educational 
interest of the State. Moreover, he was a lovable, godly and just 
man, who won and held the affection of all who knew him. They were 
many. All the alumni of Hamilton College regarded him as a col- 
league or a father, according to whether they studied with him or 
under him. The heads of the universities, colleges, academies and 
high schools of this commonwealth, with their trustees and faculties, 
recognized his fidelity and wisdom in the office which made him their 
paramount representative in the government of the State. His rank 
in theology should also not be forgotten, for his work as incumbent of 
the chair of sacred rhetoric in Auburn Seminary was one of peculiar 
excellence. 

There were, and are, many men of more conspicuity or celebrity 
than Dr Upson attained in the affiliated fields of religion, morals and 
instruction in which he wrought, but that fact was due to his modesty 
and magnanimity alone. He courted and coveted no man's gifts. He 
quietly and earnestly did his dut)', where the lines of it were opened to 
him. He won the confidence and friendship, the esteem and admira- 
tion of pupils and associates to a degree none exceeded. That, with 
the approval of his conscience, sufficed for him. He lost himself 
within or screened himself behind his work. "Occasions " he avoided. 
Opportunity to do good he never neglected. The tributes of the crowd 
he shunned rather than sought. The still air of delightful and uplift- 
ing studies was the air he would breathe. And so, though his claim to 
" popularity" could not be established, his distinction among scholars 
was hardly below that of any contemporary American. And when as 
Chancellor he succeeded George William Curtis, after the latter's 
death, men of learning, of leading and of light knew that the office 
came to hands fit to hold it, to the hands of a man of fine culture, 
benign life and noble character. 

The Board of Regents, to which he belonged from 1874 to his death, 
had no more trusted member. Within the period of his vice chancellor- 
ship and chancellorship, the State vastly enlarged its functions, and, 
after no years of existence merely by act of the Legislature, made it a 



ANSON JUDD UPSON 23 

permanent body by constitutional mandate. The professions of law, 
of medicine and surgery, of dentistry, of veterinary medicine and of 
accountancy, as well as other professions, became by law dependent on 
the board's educational initiative and warrant. All the systems of 
competitive examinations affecting the standing and promotion of 
pupils in the higher schools, under the inspection of the State, bad their 
genesis and control in the Board of Regents. Of them all, the deceased 
Chancellor was the wise guardian and the eloquent advocate. 

The Board of Regents, in his time, and not in small measure because 
of his labors, passed from great to greater work. Always secure in the 
respect of the learned, it became a vital part of the entire scheme of 
education. It made itself as strong with the masses as before it had 
been with the representatives and with . the institutions of classical and 
of scientific instruction. The cynical attitude of the uncultivated or 
the semitolerant attitude of coarse and ignorant political classes toward 
the board was corrected. It gave way to the respect of both for the 
board or to their fear of the strong hold which it had gained, and 
which it yearly increases, on the heart and the intellect of the plain 
people of the Empire state. This was the joy and is the crown of the 
man who has gone whither he was preceded by a vast army of his 
spiritual and intellectual children. 

Much might be written of his personal charm and sanctity. But 
that belongs rather to the heart of friendship than to the province of 
public journalism. Every man had his love and his hand, none his 
envy or his enmity. Yet his affection was the product of strength and 
the heartfulness of a Christian scholar toward the sons of men, not the 
noncombatant sweetness and weakness of an invirile nature. The 
pulpit hardly had a more polished or pungent writer. The teaching 
chair never had a finer personal influence in it. The art of academic 
oratory never had a gentler or more effective instructor or exemplar. 
His pupils revered him. His colleagues loved him. Learning and 
the state poured on him honors that honored them. In fulness of 
years and at the summit of achievement he fell on sleep. He was 
ready for recall, for as he lived so he died. The readiness is all. The 
readiness was his. 

On motion of Regent Fitch, 

Resolved, That a memorial volume of the late Chancellor Upson be 
prepared under the auspices of the Regents. 

Resolved, That a committee of three be appointed by the Acting 
Chancellor, Regent Townsend, to prepare such a volume. 

The Acting Chancellor appointed as such committee Regents Fitch, 
McKelway and Carroll E. Smith. 

In accordance with the foregoing action, this" volume has been col- 
lated, and the following Regents have added their tributes to those 
above given. 

Regent Townsend says : 

Chancellor Upson was a man who made the world better by living in 
it. He was a cultured scholar, a man of refined taste, whose every 
thought and expression was adapted to the rules of the most strict 
approval of our Christian and scholarly life. His life in the Board of 
Regents of the University was approved by every member of our 
board, and with us his memory will be with the blessed. 



24 UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 

Regent Watson says : 

A man of the highest ideals, combined with an almost childlike 
simplicity, he had filled with great acclaim, and at a very early age, the 
position of professor of rhetoric and oratory at Hamilton College, and 
of platform lecturer, and later was widely known as a distinguished 
pulpit orator, and Chancellor of the University of the State of New 
York, the fit successor of George William Curtis. 

Always kindly and true to those whom he had once admitted to his 
confidence, he was guileless in character and sincere in every thought 
and action. By his influence on the young men who were trained for 
public speaking at Hamilton College, he gave to that institution a far 
greater and more enduring reputation than any other man who was 
ever connected with it. 

Regent Turner says : 

In the death of the Rev. Dr Anson Judd Upson, long an active and 
zealous member of the Board of Regents, and for 10 years its able and 
honored Chancellor, the State and his associates suffered a great and 
regrettable loss. 

Conscientious and faithful in the discharge of every duty, calm and 
sagacious in council, clear of vision and sound in judgment, he possessed 
the confidence and sincere regard of those joined with him in the 
important work of the Regents, and freely gave to its service the wealth 
of his high scholarship and large experience without stint or measure. 

Eloquent and persuasive as a preacher, he impressed those so fortu- 
nate as to hear him in the pulpit, as one whose saintly and lovable 
character exemplified broadness of faith, purity of life, the brotherhood 
of men and the virtues and charity of a Christian gentleman. 

Distinguished and successful as a teacher, he won the steadfast love, 
respect and admiration of his pupils as he led them in ever ascending 
paths of progress and advancement, to the hights of learning and 
intellectual achievement. 

In his threefold duties as teacher, minister of the Gospel and Regent, 
Chancellor Upson was an educator along broad lines and with high 
ideals ; and he did much to promote advanced and harmonious action 
and a spirit of unity among the institutions of learning within the 
jurisdiction of the board, irrespective of creeds, parties or localities. 

The story of his splendid life is a lasting tribute to his great attain- 
ments and nobility of character, his broad and catholic soul, his spot- 
less record as a man and a citizen of the State he loved, the Divine 
Master he revered and served, and will become more illustrious as the 
years come and pass away. 

Regent Beach says: 

Chancellor Upson was a man of clear perceptions, strong convictions 
and sound judgment. His associates in the Board of Regents recog- 
nize and bear testimony to his zeal, ability and faithfulness in the 
discharge of his duties, and treasure the memories of his kindly com- 
panionship and valuable counsel. His genial, sweet and childlike dis- 
position attracted and attached to him multitudes of friends, who 
contribute spontaneous and loving tributes to his memory. His was a 
beautiful life, crowned by a serene old age of singular sweetness and 
loveliness. 

Regent Sexton says: 

Since his death, as during his life, our beloved Chancellor, Dr Upson, 
has been often in my thoughts. My direct personal acquaintance with 
him was only during the last decade, and we seldom met except on the 



ANSON JUDD UPSON 25 

occasions of the official gatherings of the Board of Regents; but his 
gentleness and grace — his sincere geniality, which increasing physical 
infirmities did not lessen — easily made me greatly to love him, as did 
every one who came within his sway. 

Others have so justly recognized and fitly spoken of his talents and 
of the perfection of his culture — and he was, indeed, grandly endowed 
and admirably developed — that I wish to refer specially only to that 
characteristic in him which to me most distinguished him and was of 
higher value than his intellectual greatness. 

The better I came to know Chancellor Upson, and the more I learned 
of him, the more he grew in my admiration as one conspicuous for 
consecration of his powers to uplifting helpfulness of his fellow crea- 
tures. It was that early settled purpose, plainly discernible in a retro- 
spect of his career, which caused him to give up youthful ambitions 
and make his life work that of a teacher. And it was the sincerity of 
his animating purpose which made him so great and successful as a 
teacher; all there was of him, heart and mind, went into his work. 

From the hopeful, well encouraged study of the law, he was called 
to give supposedly temporary assistance as an instructor in Hamilton 
College. In that experience, his mission and the great need for him 
therein were disclosed. And beyond comprehension, almost, was the 
need for such men in such endeavor at that time — the formative, 
organizing period of higher educational work in this country. He 
gladly gave himself to the cause, and with a devotion which enabled 
him to work miracles in developing the mental powers and fixing the 
characters of those so fortunate as to be subjected to his guiding 
instructions and fatherly influence. His former pupils rise up all over 
the world and call him blessed — ascribing to his faithfulness the most 
that is of worth in them. 

To the accounts and conceptions of him in the earlier period of his 
college professorship my thoughts turn with great admiration. The 
service in which he then enlisted was exacting to the last degree; 
impossible of compensating material rewards — not even properly main- 
taining, but that did not discourage him, and the brave young professor 
kept body and soul together, as did some of his pupils, with the proceeds 
of vacation and other outside work. He had cheerfully put aside his 
alluring dreams of achievement and distinction for himself in his first 
chosen profession, and with unflagging zeal and energy he devoted his 
life and talents to the missionary work of helping to make other young 
men grow in moral worth and mental power. Marvelous was his 
success; noble and inspiring his example; blessed will be his memory. 
And delightful it was that in his declining years, and to the last, he 
should be the official and typical head of the University of the State of 
New York and of its great educational work. 

Regent T. Guilford Smith says: 

I am glad to have an opportunity of expressing my sense of obliga- 
tion to the late Chancellor Upson, for the many courtesies at his hands 
during the past ten or twelve years. I am sure that every one of my 
colleagues feels as I do, in reference to his urbanity and courtesy. He 
succeeded Chancellor Curtis at a time when manyof the plans laid out had 
not been fully accomplished ; and we owe him much in the way of 
thanks for his firmness and care in carrying out what had been so 
carefully planned before his acceptance of his great office. 

Dr Upson's connection with Hamilton College was one which he 
always treasured in his memory, and one which peculiarly fitted him 



2 UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 

for his duties as Regent of the University. This warm feeling of the 
Chancellor's was more than reciprocated bj^ all of the former students 
at Hamilton; and I hardly ever met one of them but that most affec- 
tionate inquiries were made as to Dr Upson's health and well-being. 
This slight notice will be incomplete without some reference to the 
Chancellor's warm advocacy of the powers of oratory, of which he 
was a conspicuous example himself, and which he felt was to some 
extent neglected in the curriculum of the present day. His ideal of 
oratory was probably as correct as that of any man in the country, and 
he deprecated the inflammatory style as much as any one could, but at 
the same time he felt it was a pity to neglect so powerful a means of 
advancing good ideas, as public speaking gave. In this I think he had 
the hearty sympathy of almost all modern educators. 

Dr Upson was fortunate in living to an advanced age, and maintaining 
to the last his ability to do what was plainly put in his way, which he 
did so well and to the satisfaction and appreciation of all who knew him. 



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